


The Best Hawkeye

by vibruhnium



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Other, a collection of one shots, prompts and suggestions are accepted!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-23
Updated: 2015-07-20
Packaged: 2018-04-05 18:37:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4190661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vibruhnium/pseuds/vibruhnium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kate Bishop. Young adult. New Yorker. Part-time Avenger. Tends to be found with a certain Clint Barton, hoping off roofs and shooting arrows.<br/>But, what about my untold stories? This is no diary, but rather a memoir of certain events in my life that have stuck in my memory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. School Shenanigans

**Author's Note:**

> \- my first fanfic. this will be a collection of kate centric one shots. here be dragons, flashforwards, flashbacks, AUs and many other... sorry in advance for my (sometimes) broken english! -  
> Originally posted in my wattpad account (nightvving). Unbeta'd.

One could say that the heroic bug never bit me until I joined the Young Avengers, but that would be a lie. You see, growing up in the Upper East Side is a hard thing to do, whether you are born with a silver spoon or not. I had a nanny until I hit my teens, as many others kids in my neighbourhood had. Not your usual my-parents-need-a-night-out-to-spice-up-their-love-life nanny, but rather a help-me-bring-up-this-kid nanny. Had my mother still been alive, I'm sure this wouldn't have been the case, but the allmighty Derek Bishop was always busy with business (and pleasure, young and sweet Katherine was still oblivious to sex and other derivates) and seeing him around was the weirdest thing.

Fanny was her name, and she and my sister, Susan, were the cornerstones of my childhood. Fanny was good with words, but fate had put her in charge of two spoiled brats 24/7. I always told her she should become a counselor, and she glared at me with that warm, slightly crooked smile.

"But sweetie, I don't want to leave you and Susan!"

Although I was not pretty sure that being with Susan was a nice experience at all when she discovered puberty and its consequences. Anyway, Fanny gave the best advice. So it was no surprise that she was the first person to find out about what was going on my class during the fifth grade.

Middle school was like wandering around the gates of hell itself: beyond the fancy uniforms and the snobbish allure, here you could meet that kind of kids you see in the brochures, with an awful personality to match. Okay, not everyone was included in this category, but encouraging kids to take advantage of their privilage without trying to promote other values such as empathy, even for those closest to them, turned them into devil spawns of Tartarus.

Why buy a Snickers bar with your pocket money, when you could just steal it to prove your dominance amongst your peers? Yeah, that was their style. Picking on others was also a must, and there's where I come into this story.

There was this boy, Henry, in my English class. He was kind and not shy at all, but for some unexplicable reason, the popular clique started picking on him. It was the beginning of the year, and at first it seemed like it was your usual dose of "normative" bullying. But soon, things started to get out of hand.

"Hey, Henry boy, I like your new watch" Peter, a lanky and blond boy, exclaimed. "Did you get it from a Macy's sale?"

His ever-faithful squad started laughing, and I rolled my eyes, sighing. At that time, they were simply annoying, even though they never forgot to invite the Bishop kid to their over-the-top birthday parties.

Peter then grabbed Henry's tiny wrist, and to the shock of his minions, forcefully started pulling the shiny watch. With a sudden snap, the watch fell to the floor. Henry slumped, trying to grab it, and then left the classroom. We all looked at each other, we were not accostumed to that violence (wait until we got to preparatory), but Peter shrugged it off saying that now they knew the nice kid was a crybaby.

Something inside me snapped. I wasn't sure if it was because I genuinely cared about the new kid, or because I was done with Peter's antics. Anyway, next thing I remember was running after the brunette. I found him near the gym, in a silent corridor, clutching the watch like it was the most precious thing in the universe. And yet, he was not crying.

Instead, he looked fazed, with a stiff expression in his round face.

"Hey, Henry. Don't worry, I'm sure you can get a new watch. There is no need to..." "You don't understand, Bishop!" he cut me mid-sentece, with a slightly off-tone voice. He breathed deeply before he spoke again. "How could you understand? You think you are different from them? How are you different from them?" his voice was sharp, his words sinking in. "This watch might not be a freaking Rolex, but it means something to me. But of course, they don't know. Nobody in this school knows nothing."

I'd always thought myself different from the rest of students in that awful class, but in the end, we more or less had the same background: nannies, inattentive parents, too much money for their own good... I'd heard that Henry had earned a scholarship, however I treated him like I treated others.

I tried to not be angry at the kid, but hell, it was hard. His words had had an impact, even though I didn't realise that at the time. Henry left, while I was still thinking about his little speech. I returned to my class, but he was nowhere to be seen. I asked around about him, but I didn't gather much info.

Fanny picked me up from school, and while we were going to ballet class, I decided to ask her advice

"I saw a kid being treated badly today in class." I muttered under my breath, while I was playing with the hem of my skirt.

"Does the teacher know?" Fanny responded, without that patronising tone someone like my father would do. She should be a counselor, but she knew her way around children.

I shook my head. "They won't help, anyway... But, I want to. I want to help him. I know it isn't right, I just... It felt wrong, so wrong."

The woman shortly streched her legs, looking outside the window of the Mercedes we were in. "You know the world isn't fair, Katie." Of course she was talking about my mum's accident. I clenched my fists, avoiding her eyes "But trying to make it a better place, believe or not, is not as crazy as you might think." She grabbed my hand, and I stared at her intensely. "Do you want to help that kid? Do it. Do it because you think it's the right thing, not because you feel bad for him or you think it might help you later on". She had a sad smile in her, one that we couldn't see often plastered on her face.

I nodded slowly "Peter is a jerk, anyway."

Instead of chastising me, a laugh escaped her lips.

\---

I had to wait a couple of days to see Henry again, and as soon as he came back I cornered him in the playground. "Look, before you leave me without letting me talk, listen. I know I can't fully understand what's like to be... I don't know, someone else. But what I do understand that we are too privileged, that it seems like we can't put ourselves in other people's places, even if we don't realise it"

Henry sighed and tried to escape my grasp, but I grabbed his shirt's sleeve in an almost pleading way. "I barely know you, but I'm not blind. Peter and his gangs are the worst. And I want to let you know that if you need anything... I'm going to help you."

Henry pursed his lips "Okay, Kate. That's... that's good to know."

"I've already planned something." I quickly added.

"Wait... what?"

"Tomorrow's break is retribution time."

How could I have expected that my sly smile would be reciprocated by the nicest student ever?

___

 

To this day, no one in Hawthorne School knows exactly what happened that fateful day, even though I'm pretty sure Peter knows exactly who put a bunch candy watches in his gym bag, and made his Rolex (obviously stolen from his dad) disappear into thin air. But what I do know is under which tree the watch was buried, along with the symbolic birth of Henry and I's friendship.

As you can tell, my take on justice at the time was "Be nice or get rekt". Even in a subtle way. But yeah, it hasn't changed that much either.


	2. Jersey City Team Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I know these are supposed to be all about Kate but yeah, I really love Kamala and and I'd love to see them meet in the comics. Remember, these characters do not belong to me!! Any positive criticism is welcome!

"Things must be getting so out of hand to have super villains on this side of the Hudson" I sighed, while looking around from the roof of the building I was standing on. Clint chuckled in my ear. Thanks to an ear piece, he could track me and give support from whatever awful burger join he was laying down in after another run-in with the Bro Mafia.

"Then this is going to be quite easy, Katie" he added, while chewing loudly on what I supposed to be a greasy slice of pizza.

"Your non-chalant attitude won't be what gets me in trouble today. And don't you dare call me Katie again, Hawkeye." I remarked, before aiming my bow to the adjacent roof.

"Noted,  _Hawkeye._ "

The target was somewhere between a Hulk rip-off and a grotesque frat boy. His massive shoulders, embiggened by some kind of drug, were hunched, seemingly oblivious to the fact that an expert agent of order and cool weapons (that's me!) was about to take him into custody. Or whatever S.H.I.E.L.D was planning to do with him afterwards. I wanted not to be concerned about that, but should I really care about a dude that nearly destroyed the piers of Jersey City?

"I thought Ms. Marvel was going to show up" I muttered to myself. She'd been going around for a while, and I believed that after the mess Trevor Kappa Sigma had created she'd show up. The newest Ms. Marvel was the first ever Jersey City-based super hero I'd heard of, and part of me was really curious to find out about her.

She kind of reminded of my beginnings, of that fateful day when my sister tried to get married and hell broke loose in the cathedral. I'd met Eli and the rest of the original team, including Cassie, that same day, and could not have expected how things would end up. Now, several years later, there was me, with an unhelpful mentor/sidekick and a tedious adversary to take down.

These were the times I missed California the most.

Suddenly, drugged Trevor disappeared. He was nowhere to be seen, and I froze.

"Hell, Kate, do something!" Clint's voice was strained, as if he was choking on the very same pizza he'd been eating.

"Alright, alright, I'm on it!" Frantically, I started running, jumping between buildings, trying to make out in which direction did the man escape.

And there I was, running down the streets of Jersey City when I finally found not the drugged frat boy, but the girl of the year.

Ms. Marvel herself.

\--

Kamala and Nakia had just left class when they found out about the trouble in the piers. Kamala knew she had to do something: it was her city, and her part-time job was kicking baddie's butts. In a way.

"I'm so sorry Nakia, something just came up. I have to go to Circle Q. I'll see you later!" Kamala hurriedly said. She was wearing her costume under her clothes, always came in handy when she had to go to class knowing crime never sleeps. Well, crime can't sleep anyway, it is an abstract concept in a way.

Nakia sighed. "Don't take too long, though, we have to do Mr. Ashtons' group project, and Maria has come down with a fever."

_Oh, no, I'd completely forgotten about it!,_ Kamala thought to herself. She hoped her friend would not suspect that her leaving had something to do with Bruno. Nakia had always suspected that the Italian kid felt more than a simple admiration for her best friend, but she hadn't shared her thoughts on the subject with Kamala yet.

"I'll be back super fast, I'll go full Quicksilver on it".  _Great, your inner fangirl is showing again, Khan,_  she tried to reprimenf herself, because now she was part of the super hero community. And to her dismay, it wasn't quite like her fanfics.

Once she had lost sight of Nakia, Kamala started running and turned sharply to her right, entering a cul-de-sac. She quickly got rid of her sweater and hid them in her usual dumpster. She phoned Bruno while she was still elongating her legs. It still was a dizzy experience, but it was helpful if she had to gain some height. "I couldn't get out of class sooner. Do you know anything?" she asked while running along the billboards on top of the buildings in the main street. From there she could see the smoke billowing from the piers, as well as a lilac clad figure jumping around and landing in the sidewalk, a couple of blocks down her position.

"Seems to be some kind of jock turned into monster... I can't leave the shop at the moment, but I'll try to hack into some survaillance camera system to keep you updated!" Kamala could hear his frantic typing and how his voice seemed strained. Was it worse than she expected?

Kamala thanked him and swiftly put her burner phone (a precaution, she didn't want Bruno to get caught in more Marvel business) in the slevee of her costume. Luckily enough, her streching wouldn't misplace it. She went after the mysterious figure that was ahead of her, and with a sudden leap, landed in front of her.

The bow she was carrying should have given it away by now, but the frenzied stated in which Kamala kept her from realising who was in front of her.

"Hawkeye?"

\---

I was very glad to see that the person I was looking forward to meet called me by my preferred alias. With a smug smile in my face, I did not lower my bow.

"Hi, Ms. Marvel. Thought you would never show up." But she did steal the spotlight. We were in the middle of a busy steeet, apparently tracking down the same dude, and she was actuallt being cheered by her neighbours. "Damn, you're pretty popular. I guess we are after the same person, so it'd nice and all if we could...?"

"Team up? Young Avenger asking me team up with her?" the girl shrieked, slightly jumping on the balls of her feet.

I shrugged my shoulders, a part of me loving her drive. "Sure thing. It's your turf, after all."

Next thing I remember, I was perched on Kamala's shoulders, having the time of my life. I was used to Teddy or Billy carrying me around, but seeing the city while Ms. Marvel shifted and avoided obstacles was the most fun I had had in quite a while.

"I'm already thinking about ditching you, Barton" I whispered, without being sure if Clint heard me. I turned off the earpiece while we approached our target.

"Over there! I'm going to drop you on the ledge in three, two, one...!" I landed on my shoulder, and I effectively rolled and aimed at the jock.

He looked terrified, and I tensed my hold on the arrow. "Stand down, Abercrombie". The frat dude roared, and I let go. The arrow pierced his chest, but that didn't stop him yet. The tranquilizer was supposed to put him to sleep for a while in under a minute. Thankfully, Ms. Marvel did not disappoint: her torso expanded and she landed on top of the drugged dude, muffling his terrifying sounds. She looked at me wide eyed, as if she couldn't believe what was going on. The man struggled for a while, and I only lowered my bow when the movement stopped.

Ms. Marvel shifted into her normal form and sighed. "That was way easier than I expected."

I snorted, shaking my head "I know someone who would say the exact same thing." I missed America, she was off in one of her interdimensional trips.

The girl joined my laughs "Guess that I now have a secured place in the Young Avengers?" she flashed me a satisfied smile, while she crossed her arms over her chest.

"Honorary Young Avenger. We haven't met in a while, and it's not my call. Although it should. Still, you should aim higher, I'm sure you could ask Captain Marvel herself for a favour or two"

Her smile faltered, she must have spoken to Carol, right? "Not a bad idea. I still have a couple of hours before I head somewhere else... I know this place called Circle Q. Want to have a coffee or something? I could use some super hero advice, to be honest"

A warmth feeling seeped from my chest. She reminded me of the enthusiasm Cassie had when she joined the team. She had helped shape our dynamics, besides everything that happened during the War. For a moment, the grief and pain of her loss crossed my mind. I didn't want her to experience that so early in her career.

"Sure thing. My name is Kate, but I guess you might know that."

The smile on the brown girl's face widened once again. "Yeah. You could say that I'm a fangirl". We both laughed lightly, while I placed a tracker on the dude's body that would help S.H.I.E.L.D to locate it.

To my surprise, when I turned around, Ms. Marvel was holding her mask in her hand. " The name is Kamala, by the way. I really like the way you shoot things and kick butt."

Oh, boy, I think I already like her.


	3. Vigilantism

It started a while ago. I can't sleep at night. Can't go to Stuyvesant, because Clint is away in some extremely amazing and secretive S.H.I.E.L.D mission. I look outside my window, towards Stark Tower and the Baxter Building. The first tier of super heroes, right in the heart of Manhattan. And yet, their relationships seem to be taken from a soap opera.

Then, after trying to watch some movie or eating a midnight snack, I give up and I suit up. With my quiver full of trick arrows that I won't need in the end, I hop on the service stairs and climb up.

I start running, feeling the air on my bare face. I pull up my hoodie and start doing my round.

I've thought about asking Daredevil for info and directions, so I can do something around Hell's Kitchen without him feeling attacked. Male ego, it is. I wonder how this became a thing. After my detective stint in California and the final showdown with the Bro Mafia, I was planning to get a job, getting even to the point I was willing to ask for an internship. College isn't so plausible, as I'm now financially independent. A fancy word to express how broke I actually am. Barton offered me his sofa, but I'd rather go there when I have no other option. For no, I rely on some savings I made back when I was a teenager and my dad kindly offered me a couple thousands for surprise emergencies. That was it.

I end up in the other side of Central Park, and I deal with a couple of muggers that were trying to steal a mossy handbag from an old lady. She looked at me, as terrified as seconds ago: "new" vigilantes are frowned upon until their worthiness is proved.

Wait, am I a vigilante now?

You could say so, yeah. I run around in the middle of the night, trying to save this city one petty crime at a time.

It feels like a reflection of my feelings: I feel lost, betrayed, lonely, yearning for something I can't quite figure out, and sometimes taking a sip from a cup full of painful memories. Heck, I've even started reliving the assault, over and over. While days are nice and I can get over them, the nights seem endless, tangling one after the other. Running around and trying to do good is helping so far, but who knows if it is going to help tomorrow?

So I promise myself that I'm going to seek help, I'm going to ring my psychologist (hold up, I can't even pay her). Scratch that: I'm going to ring Jessica Jones, and then look for a job. I've many things to do in the morning.

But I can't stop running yet.


End file.
